Employment Strategies for Dropout Prevention

For many of us, the process of preparing for and finding a job is
almost automatic. We grow up assuming that we will work someday. And we
are told about the steps required to get there: summer jobs,
internships, college.

Our daily dealings with parents, friends, and relatives do much to
reinforce these assumptions: Conversations may concern the day's
accomplishments at work, complaints about a boss, the amount of a
paycheck, or the need to find a better job. Even the sound of an alarm
clock, or a morning radio show, announces that something important--the
work day--has begun.

Yet many of the students at risk for dropping out of school--such as
those participating in New York City's Dropout Prevention Program--have
not had these kinds of experiences. Growing up in an environment
largely composed of nonworkers, they conceive of work in an abstract
way. Such students may say that they want to be doctors, lawyers, or
sports stars, but they have no idea about how to fulfill those
dreams.

This should not surprise us; how could it be otherwise? Surrounded
by the devastating effects of poverty and unemployment, these
youngsters have few role models to follow in the pursuit of a career or
a vocation. Moreover, they feel frustrated, angry, and hopeless as they
watch their friends and relatives struggle to free themselves from the
vicious cycles of poverty.

Statistics reveal only a small part of the story:

About two-thirds of the students in New York City's 10 dpp high
schools come from single-parent homes, in many of which the struggle to
find work and to survive economically is constant.

Anywhere from 50 to 75 percent of the students in some dpp high
schools live in households where the annual income falls below the
poverty line.

In 1987, the average unemployment rate for blacks of all ages in New
York City was 9.2 percent--nearly twice the 4.7 percent rate for
whites. The unemployment rate for Hispanics during the same period was
8.8 percent.

One consequence of the reality that these figures suggest is that
inner-city teen-agers lack a stable frame of reference for the pursuit
of employment. Anticipating a bleak future, they feel that finding a
rewarding job is virtually impossible. For the Dropout Prevention
Program, this situation presents an enormous challenge: How should this
milieu be addressed--and undone--to prepare students for the challenges
of an increasingly sophisticated, technologically-based economy?

Two-and-a-half years ago, Mayor Edward Koch established our
program--giving us $10 million for 10 high schools--to confront these
kinds of issues. Of the various dropout-prevention strategies with
which the program has experimented, one of the most important has been
the effort to link earning with learning through the development of
comprehensive part-time and full-time employment programs for at-risk
students. We have learned several lessons thus far.

As a fundamental principle, employment opportunities must be part of
any dropout-prevention effort. Working can nourish self-esteem and can
give youngsters a feeling of belonging in spite of the hardships
confronted at home and in their neighborhoods. Because it relates
education to long-term economic independence, a job also motivates
students to attend school and obtain a diploma. Finally, professional
experiences can teach students about such values as responsibility to
others, punctuality, and discipline.

Employment, then, can be an effective anti-dropout strategy,
particularly when it is used as an incentive for disadvantaged youths
to stay in school. Through the efforts of school personnel and
community-based organizations in the dpp high schools, hundreds of
part-time jobs--within the schools, in local businesses, or in the
public sector--have been found for teen-agers who are at risk of
dropping out.

The opportunity to win a part-time job in return for good attendance
and achievement can be enormously stabilizing to youngsters who are
living in turmoil. While this approach departs from the practice of
many other employment programs, which reward youngsters who are already
succeeding in school, we have found that the offer of a job induces
many potential dropouts to remain in school.

Before we provide a student with a job, however, it is essential that
we prepare the pupil for this new responsibility. Many of the
employment programs that we sponsor through our schools and
community-based organizations are designed to expose students to the
working world. In career workshops, students learn what to expect once
they are employed; they become familiar with the functioning of an
office; they practice such skills as the proper way to answer a
telephone. In addition, vocational-skills training is available to
those who wish to learn a trade and earn academic credit while doing
so.

Once students are working part time, they are encouraged to view the
job as a learning experience. Youngsters are carefully monitored by dpp
staff members in the schools. If problems arise, or a mistake is made
on the job, we work through the problem with the student step by step.
It is crucial that this be done: Disadvantaged teen-agers, who are
easily discouraged, often perceive mistakes as irrevocable setbacks.
Furthermore, steady support and feedback about their work experiences
help counter the poor self-image that plagues so many of these
students.

The best example of dpp's comprehensive approach to employment is
its Jobs for Seniors Program, started during the 1986-87 school year.
For the first time ever in New York City, high schools are formally
helping those students who want full-time employment to find jobs after
graduation.

Schools have traditionally directed their energies toward seniors
who want to go to college. Our program, however, in the belief that
every teen-ager should be helped into the world, would like schools to
assist all of their students. This phase of our program also addresses
the negative example of high-school graduates who cannot find work for
younger students who may be questioning the value of staying in
school.

Through dpp funds, job-search specialists have been hired in our
high schools to assist seniors in finding full-time jobs. Their
objective is to make these high schools a rich resource from which
business and private industry can select their trainees and entry-level
candidates. Acting as a placement service in matching students'
abilities and personalities with the needs of prospective employers,
the specialists in effect build a bridge between the school and the
private sector. These professionals are also responsible for an
intensive employment-preparation program that exposes seniors to the
variety of jobs available, and teaches them about resume writing and
job-interview techniques.

Thus far, roughly 85 percent of our high-school graduates who
expressed an interest in full-time work have been placed in jobs. We
are hopeful that the numbers will grow in the coming year. But it is a
good--and important--beginning.

Perhaps stories of individual students provide the best means of
explaining the importance of this program. Take Myrna DeJesus, for
example. Like many seniors about to graduate last spring, she knew that
she wanted to work after completing school. But Myrna, a senior at
Roosevelt High School in the Bronx, was not sure how to go about
finding a full-time job. What businesses were hiring? What kind of job
was she qualified for? How should she go about contacting different
companies, and what were firms looking for when they hired new
employees?

Through the efforts of the job-search specialist at Roosevelt, Myrna
attended job-preparation workshops, where she learned about resume
writing, interview techniques, and job expectations. Today, Myrna is
employed full time as a clerk at Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, which
participated in a jobs-fair program at Roosevelt.

Excited to be working, Myrna says she is learning something new
every day. All her friends, she adds, wish that they had been able to
participate in a program like Roosevelt's.

The experience of students such as Myrna testifies to the value of
job-preparation and employment opportunities in motivating
disadvantaged young people to stay in school. The success that many of
these students are beginning to enjoy in New York City offers hope that
dropout-prevention programs based on sound principles can help not only
to keep at-risk teen-agers in school but also to direct them
purposefully toward the future.

Victor Herbert is superintendent of the New York City school system's
Dropout Prevention Program.

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